Lena Hall Shares Backstage Perspective On HEDWIG & THE ANGRY INCH Experience

2014 Tony Award nominee for Best Featured Actress In A Musical, Lena Hall shares her personal perspective on her daily routine and preparation for portraying the gender-bending character of Yitzhak in the raucous rock musical HEDWIG & THE ANGRY INCH as part of a new self-penned essay.

Hall shares of the rehearsal process, "I play a man in the show and our director, Michael Mayer, doesn't like it when I look like a girl in rehearsal. So for rehearsals, I have to wear male drag. I paint gigantic eyebrows and sideburns with mascara and put up my hair in a do. At New 42, they decided to set up the entire band - all sound, everything - in those gigantic rooms. So the sound was so incredibly loud. I can't even imagine how upset the people next door, or the people above or below us, were. We were so loud. You put a rock band in one of those huge cavernous rehearsal rooms and it's going to be insanely loud."

Comparing her feminine KINKY BOOTS onstage look with her HEDWIG appearance, Hall reveals, "It took me about 15 minutes to put on all of that makeup because it's so routine. I'm really good at the girly face. But for Hedwig, now, it takes me about an hour to put on my man makeup. It's just a much different beast. It's so hard to look natural with all that shading on your face. With the man make-up I look in the mirror and think, God, I look so dirty. It's a delicate thing. You want just enough shading so that you look like you have a harder jawline, and look more square in the face. Your eyebrows are bigger, but they look like natural eyebrows. You have a certain expression on your face. It's more delicate than just following my own girly features, which is just frickin' eyeliner, eyebrows and eyelashes."

Additionally, Hall comments on a pep talk session shared with her onstage co-star Neil Patrick Harris prior to the post-performance concert, relating, "I said "hello" to everyone and pep talked Neil a little. I couldn't believe it, but Neil was a little nervous. He had never performed with a rock band in a small venue before so he was a little nervous about the crowd being so close and about the sound and remembering his lyrics. I was the same way about remembering lyrics to the songs. I always have a rush of nerves before I perform anything new because I'm so nervous about lyrics."

Check out the original article on the matter here.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride